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Computer Forteana?

G

greenrd

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 18, 2001
Messages
103
I don't suppose anyone knows of any Fortean phenomena involving unexplained behaviour of computers (or anything controlled by a computer)? I only ask because it would be great if I could combine these two interests of mine in a research direction.

Okay, I know there are stories of anomalous electrical phenomena caused by ghosts, and there's the AI thread here, and I know about psychic experiments using computers as apparatus, like the retropsychokinesis project on the web. But I was thinking more along the lines of a message from another world appearing spontaneously, ("automatic wordprocessing", you might call it), or a demonic face appearing on the screen - anything like that. Obviously computer viruses would need to be ruled out when investigating such cases. I've only heard of one case of "automatic wordprocessing", and it was a once-off so it's not exactly reproducible.

Of course I've looked on Google, but I only found one "serious" story:

http://www.soonet.ca/starla/scary/stories/haunted2.txt

and a few funnies, including:

http://www.gorskys.com.au/articles/satan-possessed-my-pc.html

so maybe computers are just not the type of thing that would be susceptible to Fortean phenomena (?)
 
mine appears to have a mind of its own it keeps logging off the net lol
 
It must have about 3-4 years ago, possibly longer that there were reports of a farmhouse in I think Wales where ghostly messages were coming from a computer allegedly from some bloke in the 16th? Century.

I think there was a report in FT and that the BBC covered this, probably in something like Mysteries with Carol Vorderman.

I'm sure that it was under continuing investigation, but it must have got superceeded by something else because I never saw/read anything else about it.
 
Demon in computer

I have a demon in my computer:mad:
It eats my files, corrupts my documents and drives me to the point of insanity:rolleyes:
It's called Microsoft Word....
 
My computer has a whole selection of Daemons in it.

Sorry, geeky unix joke that no-one will get.
 
My computer has a whole selection of Daemons in it.
Click to expand...

The worst thing about Unix is having to kill your children to stop them turning into zombies.
 
Onetime, my flatmate and I were watching Friday The Thirteenth Part 3 on a Sunday afternoon. About half an hour from the end a subtitle came up (Ceefax-style) that read "You should have gone to church" in green. It stayed there for the remainder of the film. We ascribed it to "the electrical ghost", as the telly used to change channels spontaniously, and various assorted phenomena. When the TV died, so did the ghost. I wonder if it could've been an electrical fault?
 
Immediately thought of the Thomas Harden case, where a guy named Thomas Harden supposedly spoke to a couple through their computer from the reign of Henry VIII. They also recieved messages from the future.

I can't find any English-language links (or, incidentally, any non-Elnglish references that aren't cribbed and Babelfished right off the one English link I found) except the following:

http://www.strangenation.com.au/sna_evp_vod.htm

One of the people it happened to wrote a book in 1989 called "The Vertical Plane" which I'm told over and over "contains extensive photographic documentation."

Here's another link on other "ghostly" communication through computer:

http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/voices-from-cspace.html

Another link in German:

http://www.tbsf.de/tonbandstimmen/andere_kontaktmoeglichkeiten/es_gibt_noch_andere.htm "There are already alternative possibilities for communication."
 
This is a rather broad subject and can travel off in many directions. Physically, I would argue that electronic devices with few or no moving parts would not be at all prone to spiritual or other paranormal influence. The only way to manipulate the outputs (monitor, printer, etc.) would be through physical manipulation of the inputs (keybd, mouse, mic, etc.) This would fall along the same lines as spirits moving chairs and knocking down pictures, albeit a bit more coordinated.
However, if you could argue that some force of will could manipulate the electronic current directly, then that opens up a whole new realm of possibility. It could account for freaky LED's, pixels, etc. But there is a problem with this angle: the intelliegence behind such manipulations - even to create small icons on the screen - would have to be well beyond what any human possesses/possessed.
So maybe you're wondering "couldn't the 'manipulative force' just will a face onto the screen?" I really don't know, but I personally doubt it since the physical processes to do it are so complicated.
There will also be a HUGE problem ruling out foul play. Not every hacker wants to become famous. Some just want to annoy people. This is a subject all its own. Disgruntled employees who program annoying or disturbing features into the finished product. Aspiring hackers writing 'mini-viruses' to test their skills. Who knows what else.

I'll lend a few personal examples:

My parent's E-Machines PC turns itself on at random times. When fully powered down it will just start right up. To the uninformed this would be pretty dang freaky. It's freaky enough for my parents to get up in the middle of the night to find the PC on. Probably a problem/virus on the motherboard with the 'soft' power-off.

Back in the day when you could actually use war-dialers, I used to search for BBS's. I found one that put up a bunch of jargon (yes, my port settings were ok), then some cheesy alien/outer space stuff. The computer I had contacted belonged to a used car dealer. But if they were more serious about the content, it could have fooled a bunch of people.

Way way back when computer games fit on floppy disks, I used a 'hack' program to modify the text strings for a game install. It was customized to fool my good friend, but with messages like "look behind you" and "i'm watching your every move" and such mixed in with the regular instructions. A little imagination here could easily cause people to suspect paranormal influence on their pc. (am I evil?)

Ok hope that wasn't too long. It's a big subject. Good stuff.

-M
 
It does seem to be the case that different operating systems react differently to encouragement. Windows machines tend to respond best to threats of reformatting/uninstalling/throwing out of the window, while Apple computers are much more partial to cajoling and encouragement when they go wrong.
 
Yes! But the Windows 95,98,Me etc operating system, is so unstable, Fortian behaviour is the least of it's problems!!!!!

Is the frequent apearence of the "blue screen of death", a Fortian event, or just the result of a Windows programer rushing to meet a deadline? Likewise all these other irritating programing problems that are a feature of the WindowsOS.

Having said that Moloch, (my computer), does seem to have a life & a mind of his own & gets small rodents left behind his tower as offerings &/or sacrifice, courtesy of Kimble, my wifes cat!!!!!!!!!:monster:

:miaow:
 
SATOR AREPO etc

OK. I don't believe in this stuff, but one job I had, I got stuck with a work station notorious for crashing. After the nth crash/lockup, I got a post-it and wrote on it something I'd got from the Key of Soloman:

SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

D-mn me if the thing didn't suddenly became stable.:confused:

I wonder if I could protect my machine from viruses by using a simple chalk circle....
 
Just goes to prove the Power of Palindromes!

Carole
 
I remember about that because one of the people involved directly with it used these boards for a little while.

luce
 
I keep getting email from pergatory...

...no honest...I lovingly refer to it as the Blue Screen of Death...:D

...as do so many other peoples...
 
emotional operating systems...

As with a few other posters, I used to find (and still do) that computers (especially those with bad windows installations etc) would respond to my mood - crashing repeatedly when I was in a bad one (and of course the more it crashed the angrier I got -especially with a deadline ahead), and would work well if I 'thought' nice things about it.

My father used to have a maestro which had a dodgy starter motor, and it tended to work if he was in a good mood, or spoke to it (!).

Also I had a CD walkman that used to remix CDs while it played - instead of skipping like normal (ie repeating the same second over and over) it would skip to different parts in a song (ie. a chorus/ bridge) play them, then move to another part of the song - almost seemlessly, so you couldn't tell it was jumping unless you knew the track already!
 
Remember that article in FT about that girl who claimed that Kurt Cobain showed up on her comp and was screaming for help, then asked her to kiss him- which she did (!?!) and then he disapeared.
The next day he was back, and then the comp crashed I think and they had to call an exorsist or something. I may have the details mixed up......
 
I have that one in print...

This is A.I. run amock I tell you amock...Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!

:( I'm insane.....:blah: :eek!!!!: :rolleyes: :D
 
Amock? The word is Rampant[/ib]...
Entirely by-the-by;I actually have a friend who's trying to program life in Pascal...


Az
 
LOL blue screen of death

my comp once crashed when my mum was on it and i mentioned that it was the blue screen of death and she stayed away from it for about a month lol till she finally accepted that; that was the way windows does things


my favourite though has to be a dr watson far better than TBSOD especially when you say to peeps hang on my pc's got a dr watson

cas
 
I think that perhaps, us humans do give off some kind of electromagnetic energy (in some cases, it is so strong people can stick forks and such to their skin, or power lightblubs) - and I think it's possible, because I had this bad-ass powerful magnet, which was flat and smaller than a penny, but it stuck to my forehead and chest. Maybe when we're happy, our electromagnetic energies are pretty low, but when we're angry... zaaaaap. That happens to me with my stupid laptop - I'm in a pissed off mood, the laptop carks, and I get more and more pissed off. It's not until I go off to calm down, drink some Pespi max, that I return to my laptop, and it's purring. So I'm always very, very, VERY nice to my computers... I even ask them to stop crashing nicely... that way I'm happy, thus the computer's happy.

Just a thouht, really. :spinning
 
People interested in computer Forteana should check out the first part of Krystof Kieslowski's Dekalog series... Fiction, but cool - one of the most Fortean bits of writing I've seen
 
Dr Watson is a "troubleshooting aid" for those ppl who have it installed in their WindowsOS. The program keeps track of crashes and bombs. If you don't have Dr Watson installed, tho, is it still called a Dr Watson when your pc goes BSOD?
Personally, I got bored of the B in BSOD, and made mine a RSOD....looks more dangerous and threatening that way.

I've found this thread highly amusing so far!! I work with computers myself, and I do agree that they seem to have a (over)mind of their own. Maybe it's becoz they know that I'm a techie, but whenever a user calls with a problem of constant BSOD's, greybox crashes, or a program simply not opening, whenever one of us techies appears, the machine miraculously recovers and we have an absolute bugger of a time trying to get the machine to replicate the error. (Of course, this could also be attributed to what we politely call "Idiot User Syndrome", or the PEBKAC phenomenon.)

I have found, tho, that computers DO respond to mood swings, and the more annoyed a user is who is calling about a crashing machine, the more severe the problem becomes until one of us jauntily comes along to take a look...whereupon it behaves. :rolleyes: Computers are like children that way sometimes! The most well behaved computers in the building are those whose users rarely get their knickers wound around their necks. :p
 
left word on behind my other windows all day the other day and bent my will to constrain the dark forces to scribe there the secrets of desire... not a sausage. does this mean there are no eternal secrets, no dark forces, my will is insufficient, my computer not hermetic enough, or was i just unlucky?
 
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